It's The Word
by WitchcraftAndTrickery
Summary: Grease AU. The T-Birds rule Lawrence High, and Dean Winchester is one of them. But when shy, straitlaced Castiel Novak appears for a second time in Dean's life, his position in the high school hierarchy is shaken. Against a backdrop of the drive-ins, drag races and dance offs of 1959, Cas and Dean must learn to accept each other in a society that maybe never can. Currently rated T.


**1: Alma Mater**

"Goooood morning Lawrence! This is your main man, Dick, starting your day the only way… with music, music, music! Get out of bed, it's the first day of school! And to start the day off, I'm gonna play y'all an old favourite o' mine…"

The old Chuck Berry tune crackled loudly out of the rusted orange pickup's radio, almost but not quite drowning the voices of the three guys lounging on it. A smirk curled onto Dean's lips as he slicked his back hair and straightened the thick leather collar of his jacket. Cars were pulling into the parking lot in droves, busted up old tanks and chrome-plated hotrods on their respective sides of the lot. You didn't park your mom's deuce next to a senior's hopped up new Chevy. Unspoken rule of Lawrence High #3.

"_Workin' your fingers right down to the bone,  
But the guy behind you won't leave you alone…"_

Dean narrowed his eyes, throwing back his shoulders as he glanced at his brother's usual laid-back, nonchalant expression. That was Sammy, alright – cool as ice, that kid, smart as anything, jets on fire. New year. Same Sam, same Dean. Only this year was the last one together. One last chance to make an impression, and then Dean was out of there.

"Hey, it's Dean! Dean!"

"Dean!"

Dean 's smirk widened into a full smile, and he nodded farewell to Sam, who shrugged and let him go. He didn't really like Dean's friends, in their matching leather jackets. They were loud and obnoxious and dirty and very, very Dean.

Benny was pulling his pal into a hug, grinning wildly, while the others jumped around excitedly at their leader's appearance.

"So how ya doin' Dean?"

"How was your summer?"

"Watcha been doin'?"

"Hey, Dean – "

"Woah, woah, woah," shouted Benny, lifting his hands and glowering at the others to shut it. "How ya been doin', Dean, huh? We ain't seen ya all summer."

Dean grinned. "Yeah, 's good to see you, man. Hey Adam, how's it goin' with that Harvelle chick?"

The blonde flushed slightly as Gabriel started digging him in the ribs. "She, uh, she's good," he muttered, before Ash cut over him.

"Get bent, Adam, that's my cousin you're talkin' about –"

"Nah, 's just her jugs he's thinkin' about," quipped Gabriel, slyly.

"You wanna get up here and say that, ya short-ass punk?"

Benny, looking thoroughly bored, turned back to Dean. "So – any new broads out in Sunshine State, huh?"

Dean chuckled. "Nah, same ol' skirts as every year, y'know, the ones everybody wants."

"So watcha do all summer, then?" Benny looked genuinely bemused. Dean sometimes thought Benny's sole idea for summer was getting as much skirt as possible before school started back up.

"Ah, y'know, just hangin' at the beach. Couldn't do much with Sammy there."

"Yeah, little brothers are like babe repellent," agreed Gabriel, seriously.

"Yeah, Mike gets all the moves in when your ugly mug ain't hangin' around him, Gabe," snorted Ash, wincing as Gabe's fist landed in his gut.

"Like you'd know, when the only thing hangin' around you are flies, dick."

Benny hit them both, hard, on each shoulder. He shook his head at Dean, who was laughing at his friends' dumb banter. It was good to be back. "Any action at the beach?" murmured Benny, trying to keep the other three from the conversation.

"What, you writin' a book?" chuckled Dean at the incessant questioning. He sighed, knowing his buddy wouldn't give up that easy. "It was crazy, man."

Benny gave a low whistle. "That good, huh? Anyone… y'know, special?"

The boys suddenly looked interested, and the air suddenly seemed too hot, too cloying, and Dean felt his breath start to stick in his chest like Elmer's. He rubbed the back of his neck. Shit. _What to say_…

"Yeah… yeah, there was this one – this one chick. She… She was kinda cool." He shrugged his shoulders uselessly. _Don't ask any more, don't ask any more_…

"Ya mean she put out first time?" sniggered Gabriel, earning himself a punch in the ribs from Dean.

"Come on Gabe, 's that all ya think about?" he asked, easy grin in place, but his heart was beating faster than a jacked up Chrysler in a drag race.

Gabriel punched the air in mock victory. "You got it, Deano!"

They laughed, and the conversation switched to the new wheels Benny was working his ass off to buy to finally beat the Hellhounds. Dean inwardly sighed in relief. If the guys found out what he'd done all summer… No. It didn't warrant thinking about. Wasn't like it was ever going to matter, anyway, the guy had long gone by now. No. He pushed the thoughts from his mind and moved off with his friends into the school.

* * *

"Are you sure I look okay, Anna?"

Castiel tugged at his shirt self-consciously. He'd been so clueless as to what he should wear; he'd never had to worry before, being home-schooled. His father had taught him everything he needed to know, and more, but a good understanding of biology was nothing when you just wanted to fit in in your new school. He didn't think he'd ever be more grateful that his parents already knew Anna's. She was something new with an inbuilt sense of familiarity, and she was more than happy to take control of his wardrobe.

"You look fine, Cas," she assured him, grinning. "Honestly, hon, you're a knockout. Or, you could be if you believed it." She raised her eyebrows at him.

Cas shrugged. "I don't know, Anna. I'm just… really nervous, y'know?"

"You look great."

Cas nodded, smoothing his hands on his pants anxiously. "So," he mumbled. "This is Lawrence High."

"Yup," nodded Anna, cheerily. "And you're gonna love it here, kiddo!"

She squeezed his shoulder, frog-marching him toward a bubblegum pink rod across the parking lot. "I've never done school before," lamented Cas, letting the redhead lead him on. "I don't even know what I'm supposed to do. Still," he added, half to himself, "it's not like I'm any stranger to heartbreak."

Anna gave him a strange look. "Why?" she asked, curiously. "You got psoriasis or somethin'?"

"Oh God, Anna," came a loud, low drawl from the pink car. A short girl, with wild curly dark hair and large sunshades in an identical jacket to Anna's, was watching them with a certain air of boredom. "Give the guy a break!"

"Meg! Hey! Girls," squealed Anna, happily, "This is Cas. Cas – the Pink Ladies!"

The girls laughed riotously, and Cas noticed the other two behind the car – a short, slender blonde and a buxom Hispanic looking girl in the same cerise jackets. He hung back as they joked and hugged with the easy familiarity of best friends, and watched curiously. The darker girl threw him an uneasy look.

"Wouldn't he be better off with Benny and Dean's guys, Anna?"

The name jarred in Castiel's mind, but he brushed it off. Different Dean. _Not the same Dean_.

The blonde giggled. "Aw, get out o' here Ruby, they'd eat the poor guy up! You're good with us, Cas." And she flashed him an easy smile, which he gratefully returned. He was making friends. Sure, they were all girls, but they were people he now knew. Sort of.

"And besides," chuckled Anna, "I don't want my dumb nosebleed of a brother spoilin' him."

Meg looked him up and down, almost critically. Then she shrugged and turned away, taking Ruby's arm as they went. Anna motioned for him to follow.

"So," drawled Meg, with the same casual boredom, "Here we are again."

"Yeah," sighed Ruby, "but this time, we're _seniors_."

"And we are gonna rule the school!" affirmed Meg, bopping her hips from side to side, and the girls whooped and laughed as the went into the building.

They were all very pretty, Castiel decided. Ruby was a bombshell. Meg practically oozed sex. Jo was pretty in that Anne Baxter type way. Anna was the same, but more Clara Bow than Anne Baxter. However, Cas thought, he wanted them about as much as he wanted herpes, and that was something that concerned him. It wasn't right for a teenage guy to not want Brigitte Bardot's like Ruby.

That was when the blonde blew a balloon with her gum, and it popped in her face, making both her and Castiel bust into giggles. Ruby turned with an exasperated expression.

"Jo," she sighed, "that is so _adolescent_!"

"We are adolescent," argued Jo, mildly, chewing vigorously on her gum and winking at Cas.

"Doesn't mean we gotta flaunt it," came the low sound of Meg's voice. She grinned up at the main doors. "Okay, girls," she sneered at seemingly both no one and everyone, "let's go get 'em."

* * *

First day of the year in Lawrence High went a little like this.

Principal Tran would alternate between barking orders at Kevin to get the schedules ready – the _right_ schedules this time, freshmen didn't actually study advanced geometry – and patrolling the corridors with the intention of greeting students, but succeeding more in scaring the crap out of them. Kevin himself would flail helplessly at his desk, desperately attempting to organise anything and everything his mother commanded like her word was God's own.

Mr Henriksen would complain that Benny LaFitte was in his class _again_, Mrs Mills would pretend to sympathise but ultimately just be glad that it wasn't her class he was re-entering, and Nurse Naomi, (whose real name no one actually knew, and was widely suspected of moonlighting for the CIA), would fret over lost medicines, and the token new kid would hover nervously around the reception desk.

That year, the new kid was Castiel Novak, and he was dutifully hovering nervously around the reception desk, casting his eyes around the crowds of kids packing into the hall. _What if they could tell. What if they could see._ Cas' mind wandered back to the beach in Florida, back to –

"Can I help you, son?"

Cas jumped, spinning around to see a small, trim, Asian woman in a voluminous pink rayon suit watching him like a hawk. Or maybe more like a blackbird – she had a certain bird-like quality to her small, pointed features and sharp, dark eyes. Cas briefly remembered seeing her from the newspaper the other day. Principal Linda Tran. That was right.

"Oh, yes," he stumbled, holding out his hand awkwardly. "I'm Castiel Novak, it's my first day here."

Principal Tran looked curiously at the extended hand, and nodded, turning away. Cas let it fall beside him uselessly, and blushed. "Oh, well," the woman was saying as she fluttered at a cabinet. "Welcome to Lawrence High. You'll have to fill a few forms, here…" Her sharp eyes suddenly focussed on something behind Cas, and the thin brows knitted together in aggravation. Before he could turn to see what had caught her attention, though, the small woman was smiling at him, pushing a black ball point into his hand and dropping a wad of sheets in front of him. "Would you excuse me for a moment, please?" she asked, before hurrying off. Cas caught the young man behind the desk's eye, who shrugged and winced almost apologetically.

Somewhere in the distance, the brisk sound of the Principal's heels could be heard echoing around the locker filled hallway. People moved for Principal Tran. She had a look of fiery determination about her, like she could burn your soul with a single glance. Perks of being a principal, maybe. Or otherwise, a student's healthy respect for a tiny woman with an equally tiny tolerance for bullshit.

Everyone heard Principal Tran, except for the reason she was there. Gabriel, Adam and Dean were currently making their way to homeroom, and Gabriel was loudly complaining about his schedule.

"Look at this, man – every teacher I got this year's flunked me before!" he whined, brandishing the already crumpled paper in front of Adam's face.

Adam tried to reason. "You gotta be careful, Gabe, or you're gonna be spendin' all year in Tran's office," he warned, sharing a quick, amused glance with Dean.

"Yeah, well," Gabe muttered, mutinously. "This year, she's gonna wish she'd never even _seen_ me."

"Whatcha gonna do, huh, tough guy?"

"I ain't takin' no crap from her this year, 's all," replied the shorter blonde, throwing back his shoulders and strutting forward.

He stopped abruptly at the sight of the woman in the pink rayon suit standing, arms folded, toe tapping, before him. "Gabriel," announced Principal Tran, coldly.

Gabriel blanched. "Oh – uh – Hello, ma'am," he stuttered, seemingly frozen in place, finding the floor more interesting with each passing second of the principal's gaze.

"Aren't you supposed to be in registration right now, Gabriel?"

"I was just going for a walk, ma'am," he muttered, tips of his ears reddening at the bad lie.

Principal Tran knew it. "You were just dawdling, weren't you?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Dean dug Adam sharply in the ribs as the blonde threatened to burst into laughter.

"This is no way to start a new semester, Mr Milton," informed the principal. Gabriel muttered something under his breath which, to Dean, sounded suspiciously like it told the principal what to do with her frickin' new semester. An uncomfortable silence followed, in which the principal's brows raised ever higher.

"Well?" she asked, brusquely. "Are you boys going to just stand there all day?"

Gabriel hastened into motion. "Oh, uh, no ma'am," he stumbled, frantically. "I mean, yes, ma'am. I mean, um, I'm just, uh –" A hard glare. "No, ma'am," he finished, meekly.

"Well, then move."

"Yes, ma'am."

Principal Tran continued on her way, and Adam and Dean both burst into laughter in her wake.

"Yeah," snorted Dean as Gabriel's face turned a violent shade of magenta, "yeah, I'm sure glad you didn't take any of her crap, Gabe. Really told her, huh?"

Adam was creased over laughing. "Yes ma'am!" he mimicked. "No ma'am! So sorry ma'am!"

Gabriel swore at them, muttering darkly, before moving off to torment that Garth kid in order to heal his ego. The other two followed, still chuckling, and for a moment, Dean's eyes strayed to the guy in the crisp white shirt leaning over reception. _Must be new_, he thought, but brushed the thought aside and soon forgot. Wasn't like he was gonna talk to the guy much, anyway. Not in those pants, anyway.

-0-0-0-0-

_**So, this is a whole new branch of fanfiction for me – I've never written a multi-chapter, never written an AU, never written a slash fic, and now I'm lumping all three together! I'm hoping to veer away from the actual Grease script at some point, but for now I'll use a fair bit just to set the scene. Please let me know what you think, and I'll update whenever I can! Hope you enjoy!**_

_**~Witchcraft**_


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